I was awarded by the President of Bulgaria with the prestigious John Atanasoff award in 2013.

The award is named after Prof. John Vincent Atanasoff, an American physicist of Bulgarian descent who was the inventor of the first electronic digital computer ABC.

The 33-year-old scientist in the area of information technology, Dr. Petar Kormushev, became the holder of the 2013 John Atanasoff аward. Petar Kormushev has been nominated for the award for his work in robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. The distinction was given to him by the President of Bulgaria, Mr. Rosen Plevneliev, at a ceremony in Sofia on October 4th, 2013.

Description: Motor skills of humans and animals are still utterly astonishing when compared to robots. This PhD theme will focus around developmental robotics and robot learning methods to advance the state-of-the-art in robot motor skills.

Developmental robotics offers a qualitatively different approach for controlling humanoid robots than the currently predominant approach based on manually engineered controllers. As a result, despite the significant mechatronic advances in humanoid robot design, the motor skill repertoire of current humanoid robots is mediocre compared to their biological counterparts.

This PhD theme aims to bring forward advances in the quality of robot motor skills towards biological richness. The creation of novel, high-performance, passively-compliant humanoid robots (such as the robot COMAN developed at IIT) offers a significant potential for achieving such advances in motor skills. However, as the bottleneck is not the hardware anymore, the main efforts should be directed towards the software that controls the robot. It is no longer reasonable to use oversimplified models of robot dynamics, because the novel compliant robots possess much richer and more complex dynamics than the previous generation of stiff
robots. Therefore, new solutions should be sought to address the challenge of compliant humanoid robot control. And developmental robotics offers one promising alternative for achieving this.

The PhD theme will explore developing novel robot learning algorithms and methods that allow humanoid robots to easily learn novel skills. At the same time, robots should be capable of natural and robust interaction with people. The focus of the research will be on intelligent exploration techniques, robot learning and human-robot interaction.

Description: The creation of novel, high-performance, passively-compliant humanoid robots (such as the robot COMAN developed by IIT) offers a significant potential for achieving more agile locomotion. At this stage, the bottleneck is not the hardware anymore, but the software that controls the robot. It is no longer reasonable to use over-simplified models of robot dynamics, because the novel compliant robots possess much richer and more complex dynamics than the previous generation of stiff robots. Therefore, a new solution should be sought to address the challenge of compliant humanoid robot control.

In this PhD theme, the use of machine learning and robot learning methods will be explored, in order to achieve novel ways for whole-body compliant humanoid robot control. In particular, the focus will be on achieving agile locomotion, based on robot self-learned dynamics, rather than on pre-engineered dynamics model. The PhD candidates will be expected to develop new algorithms for robot learning and to advance the state-of-the-art in humanoid robot locomotion.

The expected outcome of these efforts includes the realization of highly dynamic bipedal locomotion such as omni-directional walking on uneven surfaces, jumping and running robustly on uneven terrain and in presence of high uncertainties, demonstrating robustness and tolerance to external disturbances, etc. The ultimate goal will be achieving locomotion skills comparable to a 1.5 – 2 year-old child.

I have an open postdoctoral position in my team, in the field of Machine Learning for Robotics. The details are listed below. For further information please contact me by e-mail.

The Department of Advanced Robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology (an English-language research institute) is seeking to appoint a well-motivated full-time postdoctoral researcher in the area of machine learning applied to robotics in general, and in particular to Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV).

The successful candidate will join an ongoing research project funded by the European Commission under FP7 in the category Cognitive Systems and Robotics called “PANDORA” (Persistent Autonomy through learNing, aDaptation, Observation and ReplAnning) which started in January 2012. The project is a collaboration of five leading universities and institutes in Europe: Heriot Watt University (UK), Italian Institute of Technology (Italy), University of Girona (Spain), King’s College London (UK), and National Technical University of Athens (Greece). Details about the project can be found at: http://persistentautonomy.com/

The accepted candidate will contribute to the development and experimental validation of novel reinforcement learning and imitation learning algorithms for robot control, as well as their specific application to autonomous underwater vehicles. The research will be conducted at the Department of Advanced Robotics within the “Learning and Interaction Group” with project leader Dr. Petar Kormushev.

The research work will include conducting experiments with two different AUVs (Girona 500 and Nessie V) in water tanks in Spain and UK in collaboration with the other project partners. The developed machine learning algorithms can also be applied to other robots available at IIT, such as the compliant humanoid robot COMAN, the hydraulic quadruped robot HyQ, the humanoid robot iCub, two Barrett WAM manipulator arms, and a KUKA LWR arm robot.

International applications are encouraged. The successful candidate will be offered a fixed-term project collaboration contract for the remaining duration of the project due to end in December 2014 with a highly-competitive salary which will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. Expected starting date is as soon as possible, preferably before September 1st, 2013.

Application Procedure:

To apply please send a detailed CV, a list of publications, a statement of research interests and plans, degree certificates, grade of transcripts, the names of at least two referees, and other supporting materials such as reference letters to: Dr. Petar Kormushev (petar.kormusheviit.it), quoting [PANDORA-PostDoc] in the email subject. For consideration, please apply by June 21th, 2013.

Doctoral Course on “Robotics, Cognition and Interaction Technologies”
Call for PhD students for 2013

PhD positions with scholarships are available at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genoa, Italy.
Doctoral course starting in January 2013
Application deadline: September 21, 2012Online application here

Please note that IIT is an English-language research institute, so it is not required to speak Italian.

I have one PhD opening in my team, in the field of Reinforcement Learning with application to Robot Control. The details can be found in Annex A4 – Doctoral course on “Robotics, Cognition and Interaction Technologies”, and are as follows.

Developmental robotics offers a completely different approach for controlling humanoid robots than the currently predominant approach based on manually engineered controllers. For example, currently, the majority of bipedal walking robots use variants of ZMP-based walking with largely simplified models of the robot dynamics. As a result, despite the significant mechatronic advances in humanoid robot legs, the locomotion repertoire of current bipedal robots merely includes slow walking on flat ground or inclined slopes, and primitive forms of disturbance rejection. This is far behind from even a two-year old child.

The creation of novel, high-performance, passively-compliant humanoid robots (such as the robot COMAN developed at IIT) offers a significant potential for achieving more agile locomotion. However, the bottleneck is not the hardware anymore, but the software that controls the robot. It is no longer reasonable to use over-simplified models of robot dynamics, because the novel compliant robots possess much richer and more complex dynamics than the previous generation of stiff robots. Therefore, a new solution should be sought to address the challenge of compliant humanoid robot control.

In this PhD theme, the use of developmental robotics and robot learning methods will be explored, in order to achieve novel ways for whole-body compliant humanoid robot control. In particular, the focus will be on achieving agile locomotion, based on robot self-learned dynamics, rather than on pre-engineered dynamics model. The PhD candidates will be expected to develop new algorithms for robot learning and to advance the state-of-the-art in developmental robotics.

The expected outcome of these efforts includes the realization of highly dynamic bipedal locomotion such as omni-directional walking on uneven surfaces, jumping and running robustly on uneven terrain and in presence of high uncertainties, demonstrating robustness and tolerance to external disturbances, etc. The ultimate goal will be achieving locomotion skills comparable to a 1.5 – 2 year-old child.

Requirements: This is a multidisciplinary theme where the successful candidates should have strong competencies in machine learning and artificial intelligence, and good knowledge of robot kinematics and dynamics. The candidates should have top-class degree and a background in Computer Science, Engineering, or Mathematics. Required technical skills: C/C++ and/or MATLAB. Knowledge of computer vision is a plus.

For further details about this particular PhD position, please contact me by e-mail.

In February of 2012 the first Global Future 2045 Congress was held in Moscow. There, over 50 world leading scientists from multiple disciplines met to develop a strategy for the future development of humankind. One of the main goals of the Congress was to construct a global network of scientists to further research on the development of cybernetic technology, with the ultimate goal of transferring a human’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier.

Postdoctoral position in Machine Learning for Robot Control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

The Department of Advanced Robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology (an English-language research institute), has a Post Doc opening in the research areas of Reinforcement learning and Imitation learning applied to robot control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV).

The successful candidate will participate in a 3-year research project funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-ICT, STREP, Cognitive Systems and Robotics) called “PANDORA” (Persistent Autonomy through learNing, aDaptation, Observation and ReplAnning) which started in January 2012 (http://persistentautonomy.com/).

The project is a collaboration of five universities and institutes in Europe: Heriot Watt University (UK), Italian Institute of Technology (Italy), University of Girona (Spain), King’s College London (UK), and National Technical University of Athens (Greece).

The accepted candidate will contribute to the development and experimental validation of novel reinforcement learning and imitation learning algorithms for specific application to robot control of autonomous underwater vehicles.

The research work includes conducting experiment with AUVs in water tanks in collaboration with the other project partners. The developed machine learning algorithms will also be applied for other robots available at IIT, such as the compliant humanoid robot COMAN, the humanoid robot iCub, Barrett WAM manipulator arm, and KUKA LWR arm robot.

The salary will depend on the candidate’s experience. Policies provide additional pension and health benefits. Applicants may also qualify for reduced taxes benefits. Contracts will be for the duration of the project. Expected starting date is as soon as possible.

International applications are encouraged and will receive logistic support with visa issues. For further information please contact: Dr. Petar Kormushev (petar.kormushev AT iit.it).

The invited speaker will be Prof. Alexander Stoytchev, from Iowa State University, USA. All accepted papers will be published in a special issue of a journal (for details see the website of the workshop). The workshop location is really nice, it is the biggest and best sea resort in Bulgaria, with magnificent sand and pleasant weather.